afar

Never saw that coming.

The gap is definitely starting to build, tbh I can't see them making up the 7 point gap to the teams on 34 points, Even Hull on 33 with a huge advantage in GD look a little beyond them. So for them it's maybe catch Barnsley if they can, since they are bottom of the form table as well as the league, that's going to be tough.

He's a very polarising player, that's why there will always be people who's opinions you will shake your head about, wondering how can you not see this, when you read. Some will never forgive him for his incidents of stupidity, some don't like his tracking back and question the effort he puts in. Some appreciate that he offers something different and when he's on his game really makes us a much more potent outfit. I'm in the latter camp but understand others who have formed other opinions, one thing for sure for me anyway, he's been in great form lately (barring that horrendous miss on Saturday) and we will be poorer without him, Merino or I suspect Hayden will need to step up considerably to replace him against Liverpool.

Would have happily taken a draw prior to the game, obviously annoying not to get the win but we maintained a 2 point gap on the bottom three so it's as you were I guess. The Liverpool game is a free hit,anything from it is a bonus, but we are one point closer to safety now, Swansea's revival took a beating today, Brom almost certainly down and we are 9 pts clear of them now, maybe early to say that we can forget about them.

I dunno man, the quality of L1 is beyond dreadful, just look at how the teams at the top struggled so badly in the champo last year. Wigan, Blackburn and Rotherham. I would expect them to bounce straight back up next year if they drop this year.

Yeah from what I read the external debt is the big issue, it's not huge if you are a PL club but for a potential L1 side, that'll kill ya. It's due to be paid back sometime in 2019 I think, there was talk on RTG about them being able to re-finance it. I'm no accountant but surely in order to do that they would have to have something to secure it on, a means to pay it back. The parachute payment will be the obvious thing, but if they are all used to pay off the loan then how are they going to pay their players ? LOL, obviously not through gate receipts. Short could save their club though, just dip your hand into your pocket one last time and pay off the external debt, write off your personal debt and sell the club for 20 million or something, someone would take that surely. That would mean he would have to take a massive financial hit.

That's the crux of the problem, he really either needs to pay the debt off himself and sell for 50 - 100 mill, if they drop to league 1, you could probably half that. Or sell the club for a penny, write off his personal debt, but even then finding a buyer who will take on the external debt of 130 mill or whatever it is will be impossible.

Glorious Mack-slapping that! That clockstand paddock guy is trying to talk sense but the others won't have it.

It's a weird season, at the bottom of both leagues. Look at the points total in the PL and, historically you would think we are almost there, but we probably need to target more than is the norm to be sure of survival. But if you look at the champo(aka pub league), the Mackems could get away with a lot lower than is generally the rule of thumb. Honestly those teams along for the ride with the Mackems are awful too, the only wins that look likely for any of them appear to be when they are playing each other. Hard to put a points target on it right now but surely they can't continue to just stay in touch, there is a small gap now to the others, psychologically that's going to be hard to overcome the larger it gets.

just glanced at their table, i must admit it's incredible they are still only a win and a draw from safety however i stand by the fact i can't see who they will ever beat this season, they will struggle to get 33 points According to the Beeb, they sound a little unlucky to be behind: http://www.bbc.com/sport/live/football/42892557 13:42 Bolton 1-0 Sunderland The visitors are on top heading into the break at Bolton. Ashley Fletcher has another effort deflected wide and then Lee Cattermole has a shot blocked. The Black Cats are pressing for an equaliser.

Short showed a lot of ambition at first and has pumped much more money in than Ashley has. He's just constantly made horrendous appointments in key positions, and frankly got fed up with throwing the cash down the toilet, I don't blame him at all for his attitude now. Ashley on the other hand has never shown any ambition, and has clearly checked out as a owner. Both are bad people to own your club, but for different reason, Ashley's got lucky because he bought the better club with a much more solid support behind it.

Hehe, my god though they are getting so much help form elsewhere, the way things stand they still be just 3 points from off the 4th bottom club.

Really !? No soft vowels here mate.

It's a bit like the PL in some respects, that it's too tight to call who will go down. They don't have the sheer number of teams still in it like we do but you could pick any 3 from the 6 or 7 teams down there. One thing is in their favour this year, the points total that they need to hit is probably closer to the 41 points achieved by the third bottom team in 2014/15 than the 51 achieved last year by Blackburn (3rd bottom). But since they've only gotten 26 points from 34 games, achieving an average of one point per game (a target they've not managed to achieve in the last two years) only gets them to 40, that won't be enough. I think the average points to stay up is in the upper 40's, lets say 46 points is the target this year, that's 20 points from 14 games, for a team so bereft of confidence and quality that's a massive ask. They can still get out of it, and for sure they have some history of doing so in the PL at least, but that squad and manager really will have to produce an amazing turnaround in form, even though they are only 3 points from safety they just look shot to me.

I'm not his biggest fan, like many on here, but can't argue with the performances he's put in since he's returned, and more than justifies a new contract.

Their performance against Liverpool should be very worrying. They looked so toothless up front and very dodgy at the back. Compare their perfomrance with the desire we showed against Manure, and if you were a southampton fan you should be very nervous. These and Stoke remind me of us in our relegation season, sleepwalking through it, with a lot of players who frankly don't care enough.

https://www.readytogo.net/smb/threads/massive-banner-crowd-surfer-in-south-stand-to-show-fan-disgruntlement.1418432/ Haha, I laughed at this idea. There is one big problem in pulling this off, who the fuck would hold the flag up, you need more than three people in the stand for anyone to see it

So 37 points would keep you safe according to them, that's 3 wins, if we can keep up the current form that should be no problem.

Will always be my biggest hero, hope he has a great day.

Semtex, how on earth did you have Stoke finishing above us on GD, when they currently have a -26 to our -11, that's a swing of 15 goals in only gaining two more points than us ?

Burnley are probably in the worst form in the PL at the moment, lets face it they were woeful against us, for 80 mins I would say as bad as any team we've played. They have 36 points, only Swansea have scored less than them and it's only by one goal. We are two wins away from matching their total number of wins. Yet conventional wisdom is that they've had a great season and are comfortably safe. Honestly don't think any team from Burnley (in 7th) down can take their foot off and relax just yet, it's a crazy season with so few points separating the bulk of the division.

Don't feel sorry for them at all but clearly Southampton are hurting right now because of injuries up front. They look like a team in the position they are in, a lot of neat play and possession but no cutting edge and dodgy at the back.

He was actually vital to our win today, maybe forgotten a bit, but those two incidents were huge.

Bournemouth are such a weird team, they go to Chelsea and beat them 3-0, then play Huddersfield who can't score, and lose 4-1. I have no idea how to predict that game, but we owe them one after they stole the points at SJP, when we had a perfectly good goal disallowed.

He was clean and tidy today and took his goal fantastically well. He's not the Matt Ritchie of last season yet, but this was much much better than the shite he's put in recently